LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I will send your maid to you so you can finish your bath, lady,’ he said. ‘We will speak our vows before the evening meal and leave in the morning.’

      She nodded, surprised at his gentle touch and treatment.

      ‘I have to say I am confused.’ He reached for the latch on the door and turned back to face her. ‘You want to refuse marriage to me and remain here with your father, knowing what will happen to you. What would keep you here, Eva, rather than taking the chance with a man who has done nothing to harm you? I think it must be something very important indeed.’

      He paused then, and she wanted to tell him. She wanted to explain that this had nothing to do with him. That she needed to be here to seek out her daughter before her father moved her so far from her reach that she would never find her. The words were there—she owed him at least that. She struggled to keep the words within her. Eva just could not take the chance that her father would hurt her child...as he already had Eirik.

      She looked down at the water that swirled around her and said nothing.

      When she looked up, he was gone. Shuddering from the pain and humiliation, Eva rocked in the water. Her father would kill her daughter, she doubted it not. But what had he meant about Rob?

      She remembered Rob’s promise to end this betrothal, a promise made in the dark of night just before her father had found them. However, with her lying naked and next to him on the pallet, there was no way to talk their way out of it. The marriage was a fait accompli because of those circumstances, with the witnesses and those who would swear to what they’d seen.

      And the villagers who would tell that Rob had cared for her for days alone.

      Had Ramsey MacKay arranged it all, then? To trap Rob into having no choice? For surely a report back to his laird that he’d compromised the MacKay’s daughter would result in the marriage going forward. No MacKay would speak to an outsider about last year’s incident and her disappearance for several months. A bit of hysterical laughter escaped her then, echoing around the chamber.

      It would not surprise her at all, for he was a master at manipulation and deceit.

      A soft knock on the door warned her of her maidservant’s arrival. The girl approached slowly and then gasped.

      ‘Oh, my lady,’ she said. ‘Let me get some ointment for your back,’ Nessa said. ‘And a cool cloth for your face.’

      Her face was the least of it, with her back and buttocks burning in pain from his blows. She accepted the cloth and held it to her face as Nessa saw to her injuries.

      Did she have any choice in this at all? If she spoke of it to Rob, her father would deny it and punish her through her daughter. If Rob backed out of the contract over it, there could even be war between their clans, or the Mackintosh could seek retribution in some other way.

      And what of her daughter’s fate?

      Her father had sworn that she was some place safe and would be raised well. Eva might never see her again, but she would be safe. Mayhap that was the price she would have to pay for her sins?

      Running away had not worked. Eva was in exactly the same position she’d tried to avoid by escaping her father.

      Seeking her daughter on her own had not worked. Her heart broke as she knew she’d failed.

      Trying to protect the man she loved from her father’s wrath had been a terrible mistake and had ended horribly, a cost her soul must bear forever.

      Eva hissed when Nessa washed her back, no matter that the girl had a light touch in the task. The pain brought her back to her predicament.

      ‘Just see to my hair now, Nessa,’ she said. ‘You can see to those when I dress.’

      As the efficient maid washed her hair, Eva faced the unspeakable realisation that her only way out of this was to protect her daughter. She would have to take her father’s word that he would not harm Mairead if she did as he ordered. And it meant forcing the Mackintosh’s man into a marriage he did not want.

      Between the devil and the deep sea, Eva made her decision in that moment.

      * * *

      After shaving and dressing in his finest shirt and plaid, Rob strode down to the hall, needing something to drink after the scene in Eva’s chambers. His hands shook in fury as the image of Ramsey taking a strap to Eva repeated in his mind. He wanted to strangle the man for such a callous act. Especially now that Eva was Rob’s.

      He stopped. Buffeted by the servants and others in the corridor who were not expecting him to do so, he leaned against the wall, out of the way.

      When the hell had he decided she was his?

      Thinking back over the last days, Rob realised that when he’d rescued her from the cave and took her to the cottage, he began to accept the idea of it. That was why her pleading words to escape him bothered him so much.

      The idea of being forced in to marriage had angered and repelled him at first. Just as it clearly had Eva.

      It took him the weeks of travel here to begin to accept it as his fate. Eva had not.

      It took days for him to accept her. From what he’d just witnessed and heard...and not heard, it would take her much longer, if she ever would.

      Yet, in spite of his actions and treatment of her and in spite of her father’s, she seemed disinclined to marry him.

      Had she set her sights higher, then?

      As the reality struck him and the old wounds of pride surfaced, he knew he needed a drink. He pushed off the wall and made his way to the hall. Expecting something to mark the occasion of the wedding of the laird’s daughter, instead he found the hall as it had been during other meals.

      Although he would sit at the high table, he searched for a servant and asked for something stronger than either the ale or wine he usually drank. He drank the first bit down and held out the cup for more...and twice more. He waved the man away then, for a drunken groom would just give wagging tongues something else to pass around.

      Rob moved aside and watched as the hall filled and the priest arrived. The portly man almost waddled as he walked, making his way to the table at the front of the hall and greeting several MacKays along his path. From what Rob could see, the priest seemed good-natured and well liked among those here. When the lord and lady arrived and took their seats, he knew it was time, both to make his way there and to take this step that would change his life forever.

      The laird greeted him and introduced him to Father Darach before sitting and motioning for them to sit. The lady conversed quietly with the priest at her side and the laird nodded to those at this and the other tables.

      Nothing in his words or manners gave any sign of the scene above stairs a short time ago. No clue to what the man truly felt or was about. Rob’s gut told him something was going on here, but outwardly all seemed well enough. When silence filled the room, he looked up and saw that everyone’s gaze was turned to the stairway in the corner.

      Eva MacKay had arrived in the hall.

      He was on his feet before he knew it and on his way to escort her before he could think of it. A blank expression momentarily changed as their eyes met, and Rob watched as surprise gave way to a glimmer of fear. Even that disappeared and the neutral countenance was back in place.

      Rob stopped several paces from her and took his first true look at the woman who was his bride. The simple but elegant gown outlined her lush curves, and he noticed the way her long, unbound hair fell over her breasts and ended just above her hips. His mouth went dry even while his palms grew sweaty. Her hair was pulled away from her face with only a few curling tendrils outlining her face, and the graceful lines in her jaw and neck were revealed to him.

      This woman before him was new to him.

      Not the runaway disguised as a boy.

      Not the ill woman, pale and wan.

      The

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